This Invention relates to the field of medical testing. More particularly, an automatic decapping device for a capped test tube, commonly known as a vacutainer, is presented.
In the medical testing field, blood tests and other fluid tests are common. Blood is normally drawn by the insertion of a needle into the subject's arm. Blood is then drawn into a container, usually in the shape of a test tube. A test tube has a generally cylindrical shape and is rounded at the bottom. A rubber or plastic cap at the top usually seals the top of the test tube. In the vacutainer field, the caps are either removable by prying (flexible stoppers) or by twisting (threaded stoppers). The test tubes, commonly known as vacutainers, are then taken or shipped to a laboratory.
Once at the lab site the top cap must be removed. Often labs deal with large quantities of vacutainers at one time. To handle these vacutainers a technician loads the tubes vertically into a cylindrical carousel. The carousel can carry a large number of vacutainers. Due to the presence of diseases, the decapping procedure presents a certain amount of risk to the lab technician. Blood spills, drips or other leakages can cause serious illness for the human handler. It is an object of this invention to provide an automatic decapping machine that removes caps from test tubes without the need for human intervention in the decapping process.
Various methods of opening removable flexible capped vacutainers have been devised. For example, the 2003 patent issued to Osbourne (U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,903) describes an automated device used to remove the flexible cap from a safety vial. Osbourne uses a pivotal member 430 to engage the lip of the safety vial. The vial is decapped in an inverted position as shown in Osbourne. The bottle in Osbourne is pulled upwards (Column 9, lines 5-7) and the cap is pried off the bottle. Osbourne is of interest in this field because it shows a prying mechanism for removal of a flexible cap. However, it does not allow for the removal of a number of caps loaded onto a carousel in an upright position or for a method of disposal of the caps. It is another object of this invention to provide an automatic decapping device for vacutainers that is capable of decapping a quantity of containers loaded upright onto a carousel in one systematic function.
Another prying tool for removal of top caps of a test tube is disclosed in the 1989 patent issued to Irazoqui (U.S. Pat. No. 4,869,133). The Irazoqui device is hand held and designed to remove one cap at a time by prying and lifting the cap from the vacutainer. It a still further object of this invention to provide a desktop automatic decapping machine capable of removing multiple caps from vacutainers loaded onto a carousel.
Several desktop decapping machines for vacutainers have been described previously in the literature. The 2001 patent issued to Cohen (U.S. Pat. No. 6,257,091) and the 2006 patent issued to Itoh (U.S. Pat. No. 7,152,504) are examples of this type of decapping machine. Both Cohen and Itoh disclose integrated mechanisms capable of removing caps from test tubes. Itoh has a clamping mechanism, a movable frame and a chucking mechanism. The chucking mechanism grips and rotates the cap. The Cohen mechanism also grips the cap with upper grippers and rotates the test tube with lower grippers. The gripping and rotating mechanisms of Itoh and Cohen are valuable resources for removal of threaded caps. However, since the necessarily involve twisting the vacutainer, they have the drawback that they are not useful in decapping a large quantity of caps from test tubes loaded onto a carousel. It is yet another object of this invention to provide an automatic decapping machine for decapping flexible caps from a large quantity of test tubes.
Other and further objects of this invention will become obvious upon reading the below described specification.